


Apocalypse Not Quite Now

by Fanforthefics (StormDancer)



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Good Omens Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-26 17:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16686043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormDancer/pseuds/Fanforthefics
Summary: “You know,” Jamie says, thoughtful. “I think we may have made a mistake.”Tyler looks out at the imposing black sky, and the horsemen in the distance, approaching down the highway. He flicks a locust off his arm. “Yeah,” he agrees. His wings flick out, big and black, stretching for what feels like the first time in decades. “I think we might have.”





	Apocalypse Not Quite Now

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: A kiss...at the end of the world. 
> 
> Don't know anyone, don't own anything, up to and including Good Omens.

_Now_

“You know,” Jamie says, thoughtful. “I think we may have made a mistake.” 

Tyler looks out at the imposing black sky, and the horsemen in the distance, approaching down the highway. He flicks a locust off his arm. “Yeah,” he agrees. His wings flick out, big and black, stretching for what feels like the first time in decades. “I think we might have.” 

_An eternity ago, give or take,_

In the beginning, there was the One. 

Then, the One got bored, and there were the angels. 

Then the One got bored again, and there were the humans. 

Then some of the angels got bored, and, well. 

Then there was Tyler, strolling up to the cracked gates, and the angel standing there. Tyler hadn’t known him personally, then–he’d just known that he was big and brawny, and held his flaming sword like he might have known what to do with it, if someone told him who he was supposed to do it to. 

“So,” Tyler asks. His tongue flicks out on the s, sibilant with his forked tongue. “What’s up?” 

The angel turns to Tyler. He has that look of big-eyed naïveté that somehow all angels have, even after millennia of existence. That was the first thing to go, after the fall. “This was you,” he says. It rolls like thunder. Tyler rolls his eyes. 

“Yeah, no duh.” He smiles, smug. “Where are those humans you were supposed to be guarding?” 

“Not here,” the angel mutters. “Which you know. Because you’re the one who tempted them out!” 

“I am,” Tyler agrees. His tongue flicks out again. Sometimes he just can’t control it. “It was fun.” 

“Fun!” 

“Fun,” Tyler agrees. This is even more fun, really. Tempting the humans was easy. Making this angel mad–well, if he had a coherent physical form, he would probably be blushing. “Maybe this whole human thing will work out after all.” 

“They’ve fallen!” The angel blusters. Tyler smirks. 

“It’s the best way to be,” he tells the angel. “Want to join? We have cookies.” 

The angel sighs. “Go away,” he says. “You’ve ruined everything. This was supposed to be my big–I was supposed to be trusted with this, and now you’ve messed it all up, and I’m going to–” 

His head falls. Something in Tyler shifts. Pulls. He hasn’t felt it in thousands of years, but he thinks this might be what the first, faint niggling of remorse feels like. 

He doesn’t like it. “Sucks to suck,” he tells the angel, laughing. 

The angel moves his sword. Tyler shies away, because he’s not an idiot and that thing hurts. 

“Just go away!” the angel thunders, and Tyler smirks again. 

“Be seeing you,” he says, with a salute, and goes. He probably won’t, but it feels like the right way to end the interaction. 

_Millennia ago, but not quite an eternity,_

“You!”

“You!” Tyler stares. He pushes back the head scarf he’d been wearing, because he might have been a fallen angel, home in the hellfires, and all that, but also the desert sun was fucking hot. “What are you doing here?” 

“What am I doing here?” The angel straightens. He, like Tyler, is dressed as a human, in both human clothes and human shape. He’s made himself into a big man, but he still has those big, innocent looking eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“I asked you first.” 

“I asked you first!” 

“No you–” The angel takes a breath. “I’ve been assigned here.” 

“So you got another assignment?” Tyler asks. That little feeling that he’d been ignoring for centuries wiggles again. “Even after your fuck up last time?” 

The angel goes red. “It was your fault!” he insists. “But yes. I did. I’m here to watch the humans, and to make sure your sort doesn’t do any more damage.” 

“My sort?” Tyler repeats. His tongue flicks out. “There’s no one like me on this plane or below it, baby.” 

Adorably, the angel flushes again. “You know what I mean. You fallen angels. Which.” He straightens, and for a second Tyler remembers him the first time he’d seen him, a glory of light and flame outside the Garden, everything Tyler had drifted away from. All power and the glory of the One. “Go forth from here, demon.” 

Tyler blinks. The human’s voice is a little high pitched, breathy. it’s not the angelic rumble of thunder, and so is much less intimidating. “Um, yeah, no can do.” 

“What?” The angel’s shoulders roll back down a little, like he didn’t know what to do when intimidation didn’t work. “Why not?” 

“I’ve been assigned here too,” Tyler tells him, because he doesn’t see any reason not to. “To, you know. Watch over the humans. Make sure they go wrong.” He doesn’t say the second part, about the Secret Mission. 

The angel blinks. “You won’t win. I’ll keep them safe.” 

Tyler smiles back, trying for innocence he left a long time ago. “You won’t win. I’ll corrupt them.” 

Suddenly, the angel smiles. Tyler blinks. He’s wearing human shape, but that smile must have some of the grace shining through. Also, dimples. An angel shouldn’t have dimples. “We’ll see,” the angel says, and despite himself, Tyler laughs. 

_Sometime in the Middle Ages, Tyler was asleep for a while and sort of lost track,_

“You know, I think I miss the Romans,” Tyler says, dropping onto the bench next to Jamie. Jamie doesn’t flinch, just rips off a piece of the hunk of bread he’s been staring at, debating whether or not to eat. Tyler has been lectured on both how disgusting human digestion is and also how delightful humans are at making food enough times to know what Jamie’s been debating. “They had their problems, but they knew how to throw a party.” 

“And they did know their way around a legion,” Jamie hums. He hands the hunk of bread to Tyler. Tyler has higher standards in his cuisine than Jamie; he throws it away. “I mean, Charlemagne did his best, but.” He shakes his head in professional disapproval. 

Tyler snorts. “I miss the days when I could just drop a few hints and get an orgy.” 

Jamie raises his eyebrows. “So all that I heard happening in Italy…” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tyler says. Jamie keeps his eyebrows raised, but he doesn’t say anything. If he doesn’t ask, Tyler doesn’t have to tell him, and they can coexist in this bubble they’ve carved out together, where Tyler does petty evils at a high rate and cleans up and also has a few orgies where he can, and Jamie counters him where he can and makes sure humanity doesn’t actually die out and sometimes fights in wars when he gets bored and wants to remember how to swing his sword. “You’re winning this century, I think. It’s all God this, God that.” 

Jamie shakes his head slowly. He rips off another hunk of bread, sighs, eats it, then makes a face like he regrets eating it. Only then does he say, “They say that, but have you seen what they do? I think this one might be yours.” 

“We can both report it as ours, then,” Tyler decides. He doesn’t want Jamie replaced by someone who won’t talk to him, who he hasn’t managed to wear down by centuries of hanging around the only other being on Earth who remembers what it was Before. Who would Tyler have to talk to? Who would Jamie smile at like that, like he remembered that before the angels had worn white robes and carried babies they’d held swords and struck awe and fear in equal measure. And who would stop Tyler from being bored, that whole time he was waiting for the Secret Plan to take form? 

“Yeah,” Jamie agrees. He still doesn’t sound happy, as he repeats his sequence with the bread. Tyler sighs. 

“You don’t even have to eat.” 

“I know, but the sensation is so fascinating.” 

Tyler makes a face. Jamie didn’t even manage to sound cheerful about the sensation of eating, which he’s usually into. “What’s wrong?” 

“My superiors aren’t happy,” Jamie says, making the face he always makes when he’s telling Tyler about what’s happening upstairs. He’d tried not to, for a while, but Tyler is persistent, good at being annoying, and has literally all the time in the world. “I’m going to need to do a miracle soon.” 

“Ooh, what are you thinking?” 

“Something one off,” Jamie tells him. “I hate miracles. They’re so flashy.” 

Tyler blinks. “You’re an angel,” he points out. “You’re literally flashy.” 

“Not in this form.” 

Tyler looks him over. Jamie is many things, but creative is not one of them; he is once again a large man, the sort of off-hand handsome that Jamie always make his human shapes, like the flesh couldn’t be shaped around him as anything other than attractive. Tyler, who shapes his forms very particularly, is always torn between appreciation and annoyance that it’s that easy for him. Then again, Jamie’s not doing much seducing. He’s assuming. Tyler doesn’t really know what he gets up to the years they aren’t together. 

“So, give them some razzle-dazzle, drop some awe, and then you’ll be fine and I’ll have to go sow some unrest somewhere random to make up for it.” 

“Tyler–” 

“It’d have to be someplace really random, where you’d never guess. Like, I don’t know, Prague.” 

“Please don’t,” Jamie’s tells him, but his lips are twitching into a smile.

“I could do awesome shit in Prague,” Tyler goes on. “Maybe throw someone out a window? That seems like it could start some shit.” 

“No one’s going to start a war over throwing someone out of a window.”

“Challenge accepted. You do a miracle, I’m going to start a war over a window.” 

Jamie is laughing now, probably despite himself. Tyler grins back, and steals a piece of Jamie’s bread. 

It is, as expected, terrible. 

_The Twenties, because good calendars are a thing now and Tyler can always check the date,_

Tyler is very drunk, a little high, and maybe hallucinating a little bit when a hand lands on his shoulder. It really lands, too, touching not just his human shape but down into him, into the parts of him that devil, and maybe even deeper, into the parts of him that were once grace.  

“Jamie!” he says, loudly, and turns. The lights of the club are dark, and bodies are moving around them, writhing and close. Jamie stands out among them, lit as always by something untouchable in him. He’s as big as he was in 1903, when Tyler last saw him, and in the shadows his eyes are infinite as Before. 

“We need to talk,” Jamie tells him, sounding serious. 

“This isn’t a place for talking,” Tyler points out. The music is fast and loud and frenetic, and only an angel could be as boring as to stand still. “Let’s dance.” 

“Let’s not,” Jamie says, and his hand tightens. He’s angry, actually angry. 

“What happened?” Tyler yells, over the music. 

Jamie looks astonished Tyler could even ask. “What happened? The Great War happened! You killed so many of them!” 

Tyler stops letting the drugs and alcohol affect him, and  straightens back. “You think that was me?” he asks. He was there, in the trenches. He’d wanted to see, and he did–he saw the mud and the rats and the tools of death; he saw the lifeless eyes of boys who died choking on mustard gas and the ones who lived but hated themselves for it. “You think I did that?” 

Jamie’s face is set. Tyler wonders what he saw. Where he was. “Are you telling me that didn’t come from hell?” he demands. 

Tyler flinches. Hellfire is hellfire, but– “That wasn’t me,” he spits. “That was your precious humans, all on their own. I didn’t have to tell them how to kill each other, they knew that all along.” 

Jamie glares. “You gave Eve the apple! You put the rage in Cain’s heart!” 

“And Gatling made his gun,” Tyler retorts. He–something else he hasn’t felt in a long time is moving in him. Something that makes him want to shed this stupid human form and lash out. “Either they get free will or they don’t. You can’t have it both ways. And you can’t blame me when God got it wrong.” 

“But–” Jamie shakes his head, rage settling into a blank sort of confusion. “Then what’s it for? What is all of it for?” 

Tyler grabs a bottle of whisky, toasts Jamie with it. “For booze! Booze and sex and fun!” he says, and laughs like everyone has laughed since Armistice Day, without mirth. “And screw you for thinking that was me. I thought you knew me better than that.” 

“It has to be someone,” Jamie insists. “Is there another one of you–” 

“It wasn’t any of us, up or down,” Tyler tells him. Those big innocent angel eyes are staring at him, like he knows the answer. “It was just–humans.” 

Jamie stares at him a second longer–then snatches the bottle from Tyler’s hand, and takes a long swig. Tyler watches in disbelief. 

Jamie finishes, wipes the excess from his mouth with his sleeve. A drop escapes, drips down his throat. He pauses, tilts his head. “Does this actually do anything to us?” 

Tyler half-laughs. “It does if you let it,” he says, and takes the bottle back. 

_Twenty years later,_

“I know it wasn’t you.” 

“Thanks,” Tyler says, and  _looks_ –at the twisted iron gates and the scorched, sickly Japanese ground. “Does it matter?” 

“I don’t think so,” Jamie says. His hand is warm on Tyler’s shoulder this time. “It still happened.” 

“Exactly.” Tyler just–fuck, he was starting to like humans, to like their fierce joy and reckless stupidity and insatiable curiosity. Then they had to go and do this. “I thought this had to be it.” 

“It?” 

“ _It_ ,” Tyler repeats, with emphasis. They don’t talk about it, but it’s been millennia. They both know what they’re waiting for. “How could it be worse than this?” 

“I don’t know,” Jamie says. He shifts, or Tyler does, until their shoulders are pressed together. “I don’t know.” 

_Twenty more years later,_

“Fuck, I love humans,” Tyler says, laughing wildly as he looks across the Woodstock crowds. There’s so many of them, so much lust and want and anger and joy and just–emotion. “Look at them!” 

“Look at this dirt,” Jamie retorts, but he’s smiling too. “Why do we have to be here?” 

“This is a moment. I can feel it. We won’t want to miss it.” 

“Like you missed–” 

“Yes, fuck off, I’m sorry I was busy in 1963,” Tyler tells him, for the thousandth time. For the thousandth time, Jamie does not look like he believes him. “Come on, loosen up. Haven’t you heard? We’re chill, now!” He flashes Jamie a peace sign. Jamie rolls his eyes. He’s getting second glances, here–even now, there’s a hint of the military about him, which isn’t welcome here. 

“We need to fix you,” Tyler decides. Jamie’s shirt disappears; Tyler pulls some flowers from the bare ground and twirls them into a crown, that he puts on Jamie’s head. “There. You can fit in.” 

Jamie makes a face. “I look ridiculous.” 

He does. “You don’t,” Tyler assures him. “Now come on, I want to go hear the music.” 

“So do I,” Jamie admits, and lets Tyler pull him after him. Tyler creates space between people for them, just enough that they just barely don’t have to shove. They get to the front, and then there’s just screaming and the music, and Tyler–humans can do this, he thinks; there must be good. 

He glances over. Jamie’s looking at the stage, his eyes alight, and Tyler thinks of–for a second, the memory; standing at the foot of a throne devotion in his gaze, what it felt like to worship and believe. He doesn’t miss it, but, sometimes–

The song ends. Jamie turns to Tyler, smiling, still alight with that devotion–and then looks down, at the girl who bumped into him and bounced off his bare chest. 

“Sorry,” Jamie says, always polite. “Here you go.” 

He sets her on her feet, his hands big on her upper arms. She’s pretty, long blonde hair and laughing eyes and flowers in her hair, and she tilts her head up to look at Jamie, long and slow. “Hello,” she says, and Tyler knows lust in someone’s eyes. “Did you like the show?” 

“Yes, it was amazing!” Jamie enthuses. Tyler watches. His tongue flicks out, wets his lips. “Have you heard them before?” 

“Sure, a couple of times,” she tells him. Her hand is on his arm. “You thirsty? We’ve got some beer, back at my and my friends’ tent.” She smiles. 

“Thanks,” Jamie says, all earnest. Then he glances over her shoulder at Tyler. “Do you want to hear the next set?”

The girl looks at Tyler, and Tyler can sense it, like he always can–what she wants. The way she’s human, and Jamie is so very not. “Sure,” Tyler says. “Let’s go.” 

They go to the girl’s tent. She has some friends there, and they sit down, start to chat. Tyler charms the friends. The original girl is inching closer to Jamie, until she’s almost in his lap, and then she laughs, loud, and Jamie looks down like he’s surprised she’s there. She leans up, says something–and Jamie goes red, mostly-scandalized and confused and at sea, and Tyler– 

“I want to hear this band,” he announces, and gets to his feet. “Come on, Jamie.” 

“Yeah, right. We should go.” Jamie lifts the girl off his lap, gets to his feet. He makes some weird parody of a wave and a bow at the girls. “Thanks for the beer.” 

“Come back if you want more!” The girl replies, then she and her friends collapse into giggles as Tyler pulls Jamie away. 

“Thanks,” Jamie says, as they get out of earshot. “I didn’t know–she wanted–” He blushes, and it’s as adorable as it was millennia ago. 

Tyler looks at him–at his human shape, the grace underneath. “I know what she wanted,” he says, and his tongue is forked on his lips. He knows, very well. He knows what she wanted, and he’d gotten Jamie out of there. 

He blinks again. Looks at Jamie. At Jamie, who’s smiling beatifically down at him, who has a flower crown hanging half off his head and who knows him more than anyone and who he hadn’t pulled away out of jealousy, but to help. Who Tyler–

“I’ve got to go,” Tyler says, and turns. 

“What? Tyler–” 

“I’ve got to go,” Tyler repeats, and the crowd opens and closes around him, leaving Jamie behind. 

_Thirty more years later, give or take, there were a few blurs in there_

“We have a problem.” 

“Who is this?” Tyler sucks in a breath. It’s been thirty years, and it still hits him. 

“Don’t be an idiot, we’ve got a problem.” 

“I’m sorry, I don’t know who this is.” 

Tyler moves his head away from the handset to glare at it. “Seriously, Jamie?” 

“What am I supposed to do, when you disappear for decades?” Jamie’s voice is tight. “You don’t call, you don’t write, you don’t stop by–I thought–maybe you’d gotten called back down, and hadn’t bothered to say goodbye.” 

“Well, I didn’t.” 

“Clearly.” 

Tyler takes a breath. He doesn’t have to, of course, but he’s gotten used to it, after this long. It’s comforting. “Jamie–” 

“Are you even going to say where you’ve been?” 

“No,” Tyler tells him. He’s definitely not going to tell Jamie about his last decades, which were mainly a lot of navel-gazing and angst and wondering what it meant, for a devil to feel things he wasn’t supposed to be able to feel, anymore. Tyler was a devil, after all. A fallen angel. All that was good and bright and grace and love was gone from him. 

And yet. And yet, Jamie is talking, and Tyler heard the chords of creation and they didn’t sound as good as Jamie’s voice. 

“We don’t have time for that, anyway,” he goes on, before Jamie can ask. They’ve not talked for decades before. Jamie will get over it. “It’s happening.” 

“What–” 

“ _It_ , Jamie. You know what. Haven’t you seen the signs?” 

Jamie pauses. “I thought–I hoped I was imagining it.” 

“You weren’t. I’ve seen them too. He’s coming.” Tyler takes another not necessary breath. “In 37 days, the Antichrist will be born.” 

There’s no sound on the other side–Jamie must have forgotten to breath. 

“So–this is it?” he says at last. “But–now? After everything? This is it, it’s just going to be–over?” 

“Aren’t you supposed to stop it?” Tyler demands. That’s what–he thought that was what Jamie was here for. That’s what the Secret Plan was. The angels were going to stop the apocalypse. The devils were going to stop the angels stopping it. 

“What? No. It’s His plan, I’m not supposed to gainsay it. I was supposed to keep humanity going until it came.” 

“What?”

“You guys really didn’t have that intel?” 

“No, we didn’t.” Tyler stares at his hands. Looks at his apartment. At the latest dogs he’d adopted, one of whom was slobbering on his foot. “So it’s just going to happen. No one’s going to stop it.” 

“Who could? It’s His will. He ordained it.” Jamie sounds less happy about that then an angel should, probably. “No one can stop it.” 

Tyler looks at his dog. Runs a hand over his fur. “Well, shit.” At least now he’ll have plenty of time, to go down to hell and muse over what it means for a devil to fall in love with an angel. 

It’s quiet, for a long moment. Then. 

“I mean. Maybe…” 

“Maybe?” 

“Maybe we could. Not stop it. Just. Nudge it.” 

Tyler straightens. “Jamie. Are you coming to my side?” 

“No!” Jamie protests. “No, it’s not rebellion. It’s just. He’s not the Antichrist until it all comes together, right? So if we just–nudge it, so it doesn’t come together…it won’t be over.” 

“Jamie,” Tyler repeats, delighted. “What are you proposing?” 

“Tyler,” Jamie replies, dignified, “I think we need to steal a baby.” 

 _Now_ , 

"It may have been the wrong baby,” Jamie says. Still matter of fact. HIs wings flick out too, too bright to be any color at all. Something in him is shifting–he’s still wearing human skin, but it’s starting to look like it’s wearing at the edges. 

“I think it might have been,” Tyler agrees. “Huh. Guess we should have checked.” 

“Probably,” Jamie nods. “Well,” he adds, fatalistic. “I guess it’s been a good run.” 

“I’m glad to have done it with you,” Tyler says, because he can’t not.  

“You too,” Jamie replies, smiling and earnest. Then he reaches, and  _pulls_ , and there it is, the flaming sword, like that first meeting. He looks at Tyler, an angel bright with grace; Tyler’s oldest friend. “I wouldn’t have wanted to do it with anyone else.” 

Tyler sighs. Thinks, for a second, about what he’s about to do. “Fuck it,” he decides aloud, then he’s in Jamie’s space, and he’s kissing him. 

Jamie is still under his lips for a second, which is what Tyler would have expected from an angel. It’s better than a flaming sword to the still-sort-of-human balls, which is what he half expected. 

Then Tyler steps back, because Jamie’s tension isn’t flattering. 

“What was that?” Jamie asks. The sword’s hanging at his side. His wings are flapping a little haplessly in the still air. Far away, a horn sounds, echoing across the world. 

Tyler shrugs. “The world’s ending.” 

“And you thought you’d tempt me?” Jamie asks, incredulous. 

Tyler laughs, just as incredulous. “That wasn’t, fuck. It wasn’t temptation. It was…I wanted to know. Before it’s over.” 

“What kissing an angel felt like?” 

“What kissing you felt like,” Tyler tells him, and Tyler is not particularly brave, even among devils, but he lifts his head. “I don’t know why. I don’t know how it’s even possible. But I wanted to know. And I know you can’t, but–” 

“I don’t know,” Jamie says, and he sounds honestly confused. “I don’t know how this works. You’re a devil. You aren’t supposed to feel–” 

“And yet.” Tyler shrugs, spreads his hands. 

“I–” 

The horn rings again, and they both start. Look back at the field, which is bright and dark all at once, and there is a boy at the center of it, a boy and his dog and four horsemen and eternity. It puts everything in a little bit of perspective.

Jamie lifts the sword. He’s no longer pretending to be human. Neither is Tyler; their wings stretch and shift, and brush, for a moment, for a lifetime, light against dark. 

Then the horn rings a third time. 

_Later,_

“This doesn’t have to be weird,” Tyler insists. The rink is closed, but they’re inside anyway. Tyler has always thought closed signs are stupid. 

“It’s after the end of the world, I think it does have to be weird,” Jamie points out. 

“Not that. Us. I know I said some shit, but–”

“Did you not mean it?” Jamie asks, and turns a look on Tyler. 

Tyler looks out at the empty rink. He could lie. He finds he doesn’t want to. “I did.” He closes his eyes. “I know you can’t. Like, physically, you aren’t–and I’m a devil, and–” 

A hand falls onto his, heavy and warm, and Tyler looks up into those same eyes he looked into millennia ago, big and innocent and warm. “Have you forgotten what we’re made of?” Jamie tells him, half smiling. “Even you?” 

“Grace,” Tyler recites. 

“And what is grace but love?” Jamie’s smiling for real now. 

“Even for a fallen angel?” 

“A sort of fallen angel, at this point, I think,” Jamie tells him. He shifts closer, so their thighs are touching. If their wings were out, they’d be wrapped around each other. “And a not entirely pure non-fallen one.” 

Tyler grins at him. Jamie grins back, and it’s–that memory again, of devotion, of a pure and unsullied love, of what it felt. Of feeling it now, of seeing it in Jamie’s eyes. 

“Huh,” he says, and leans into Jamie. “What a world we’re in.”

“A new one, for sure,” Jamie agrees, and leans back. 

**Author's Note:**

> Liked it? Want to talk about it? Comment or come chat on tumblr at [ fanforthefics!](http://fanforthefics.tumblr.com/)


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